Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Disney suing over 'excessive' property taxes again

Disney isn't happy with their property tax assessments from last year. In fact, they think the assessments are so "excessive" that they're suing.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts filed almost a dozen lawsuits in Orange County Circuit Court last month, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Disney claims the assessments by Orange County Appraiser Rick Singh
exceeded their properties' fair market value and incorrectly "included the value of certain intangible property in the assessments."

In 2014, the Property Appraiser's office sent Disney World a tax bill of $84.5 million, but by 2016, the bill jumped to $102.6 million.

But Singh has pointed out in the past that the key issue that caused these increases is the fact that he's the first state-certified and qualified appraiser in the history of the Orange County office.

"This office has been functioning in a level of what I consider to be unconscious incompetence," he told the Orlando Tourism Report in April. "They didn't know that they didn't know. I'll give you a great example; when the entire theme park of Magic Kingdom is assessed less than the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, that's a problem."

This isn't the first time that Disney has complained about their property taxes. In October, they were joined by SeaWorld and Universal in suing Singh.